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Monday, September 25, 2017

Now that FALL is here, Halloween is upon. Or if you're Wal-Mart, it's practically Christmas. ;)

This is the time of year when the kiddos and I sit down to discuss Halloween costumes. I like to have our costumes ordered prior to October 1st so we can just check it off our list.

If you're like us, we're trying to be creative but other than hot gluing something together I don't have a lot of Pinterest-worthy skills when it comes to creating an elaborate costume.

At the end of the post, I have a fun idea for us to all share some costume ideas...keep reading. :)

2009-Sixth month old Ebby Lee dressed up like a goldfish for her very first Halloween. I found it at a resale shop and thought it was super cute and in such great condition so I snagged it. I think the costume was from Children's Place though?

2010-For Nixon's first Halloween, we dressed him up as a half football player/half football. I bought the costume on Amazon. Then I found an etsy shop that sold the cutest little tutus/shirt combos. Ebby Lee went as a little cheerleader. Her costume doubled as a "we're cheering for the refs" later when we went to one of Tab's games that season.

2011-Some friends had a big Halloween party and our family was supposed to dress up. I borrowed these Flintsones' costumes from a friend. Get this, she made them ALL out of felt! Tab and I even had one! Wait for it...

2012-At this age Nixon was already obsessed with dogs so baby Nix wanted to be a dog and I found the cutest little clown costume on another etsy shop.

2013-Ebby Lee had officially hit the princess craze. She dressed up like Rapunzel. Nixon wanted to be Batman and by default sweet baby Bowen was forced to wear a Robin costume that his mama bought two sizes too small.

2014-I had a Belle on my hands (who was hanging with Mulan) and a slew of Ninja Turtles.

2015-Ebby Lee and Nixon agreed to be Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf. And Bowen was all about dressing up like a dinosaur.

2016-The Mad Hatter and Alice in Wonderland trick-or-treated all night long with Lippy Lips (Shopkins), a tiger, and a Ninja Turtle.

The majority of our costumes come from Halloween Supercenter, Spirit Halloween, or Halloween Express online. The Disney store usually has their costumes marked down prior to Halloween so if I have a princess in the house I'll wait for those to go on sale. And then I've ordered a couple on Etsy (that I specified). My recommendation would be to order the ones on Etsy early (like NOW). Since they're handmade those usually take a bit more time, but the special handmade touches are my favorite.

Okay, here's my idea...today on Instagram post your favorite Halloween costume your kiddo has worn and tag it with #alittlebitofeverythinghalloween. Then we can all head over to IG today and search that hashtag #alittlebitofeverythinghalloween to see all kinds of ideas. If you're like our family right now every one just can't decide what/who they want to be. I'm hoping that after seeing all these costumes there will be some decisions made. :)

Friday, September 22, 2017

It's good to see you. ;) Now please invite the nice crisp fall weather to join you.

Narci, Andrea, and I are sharing our Friday Favorites from the week. Like always we invite other bloggers to join us and then link up. It's great way to find new blogs to read and for others to find you.

We've enjoyed FALL WEEK over on the blog. If you missed any posts you can see...

Our house all decorated for fall. I wish I could start a fire, make some coffee, and invite you all over but right now with the weather-I should just have a pool party. ;)

Now I have a more hot random mess of pictures from the last week or so to recap how we ring in fall around here...

This was a little over a week ago, but did you hear the good news? We had Britt's check-up from her palate repair and the doctor said it looked great. He released her to eat ANYTHING and we got rid of her arm restraints. Again, thank you for all the prayers. It was a tough surgery and recovery time, but I'm so glad it's behind us.

I got a lot of questions about what her arm restraints looked like. I didn't take many pictures, but I do have this one where I happen to be making that awkward mid-blink face (so I covered my face right up). They were soft, velcro pieces with a strap that connected them on her back. I was envisioning much much worse when the doctor first mentioned arm restraints BUT they were still annoying when you're used to rolling around while you sleep.

Do you guys follow House of Belonging on Instagram? If you don't, you should! This swaddle/wall hanging is everything. Isn't it?

On Saturday morning, this is us pre-face washes and one of us has her chocolate PediaSure spill all over her pajamas BUT this was our reaction to a gecko that got squashed in our door. Yes, squashed. What are the odds when we closed the door Friday night a gecko would be halfway through and get squished? My first thought was-we'll have to skip Nixon's game because there's no way we're gonna make it to the car. (The gecko was stuck in the door to the garage.) Neighbors saved the day and removed it for us.

Saturday evening we went to the Mesquite Rodeo. I've heard about this rodeo numerous times and just never really thought about taking the kids. We had zero plans on Saturday evening so I decided it'd be fun to check out. I'm SO glad we did. The arena was so nice and clean, had air conditioning, and the rodeo was definitely entertaining.

We had great seats. :)

We had space for Britt to walk around which was so nice. Ebby Lee's reaction to the bucking broncos was priceless.

RIGHT in front of us.

Mackenzie (holding Britt) began watching baby Ebby Lee for us years ago. She's watched our kids grow up and has graduated both high school and college. She's now back with a "real job" living pretty close so I invited her to join us for the evening. We absolutely love this girl!

Bowen got into the whole cowboy thing rather quickly.

There was a nice guy who'd bring his horse over for the kids to pet every so often.

Texas girl at heart. :)

We stayed for the end because BULL RIDING, got home way too late, and woke up to Bowen asking when we could go back to the rodeo. Definitely a successful night!

I hope you guys have a great weekend! Enjoy your first FALL day of 2017! XO

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Just like every mom out there, I'm trying to remind my kiddos to use their manners, we're working on math facts, learning our letters, and the list goes on and on. All the while...I try to do the best I can to plan fun events and special happenings for our family. When our kiddos are all grown, I want them to remember these extra fun things we did each season just to make life a little more grand. These do not have to be expensive or super thought out by any means. My kiddos are absolutely stoked if we have a movie night WITH popcorn and I have no doubts they'll remember those just as much as the things we do that cost money.

I'm sure this list looks like almost every other family's for the fall season, but it's FALL WEEK on the blog. I wanted to make sure to include the things we'll do this season to make it special...

*Halloween Parties

From preschool to Sunday School to neighborhood parties, we try to hit up as many Halloween parties as we can for two reasons. Number one they're just plain fun and number two because we like to get as much wear out of our Halloween costumes as possible. ;) The party pictured above is our annual Sunday School party for our adult group. Every year, Andrea reserves this big barn/park area and rents a bounce house. We all bring slow cookers full of yummy fall food, the kiddos all show off their costumes, and we visit. It's a great time. If you're the social person for your Sunday School class or neighborhood or something, consider this party idea as your fall social option!

*Rodeo

This is a new one I'm adding to our Fall Bucket List. I decided on a whim we should give the Mesquite Rodeo a try and I'm so glad we did. We had a GREAT time! The arena was air conditioned so it felt great inside. We were up close to the action so my kiddos were tuned in the entire time. And they just loved it. I grew up going to some small town country rodeos, so the rodeo took me WAY back. :)

*Fair

The Texas State Fair is something my kids talk about all year long. I don't even bat an eye if they randomly start talking about something and mention Big Tex (He's the big talking mechanical statue guy at the fair). It's super normal around our house. We love everything about the fair...the food, the rides, the lights, the crowd. (Except that one time our stroller was stolen-we didn't love that.)

*Make Smores

And I'm a peanut butter/chocolate girl so I love to substitute the Hershey's for a good ole' Reese's Cup. You can thank me later for that idea. ha!

*Scary Movie Night

And by "SCARY" movie...I mean something released by Disney like Hocus Pocus. ;)

*Trick-or-Treating

This picture is a couple years old, but let's face it...I'll never be able to top those expressions with another trick-or-treating picture. Right?! Every year we meet up with friends and trick-or-treat in our local neighborhoods. We love this tradition.

*Birthday Parties

I'm saying "PartIES" because this sweet thing has a fall birthday too...

We'll be celebrating Britt turning TWO in the middle of November and then we'll party hard when Bowen turns FIVE at the end of the month.

In the fall, you can guarantee I'll always have the three ingredients at my house needed for these muffins. The kiddos and I love these on a cool crisp fall morning.

*Sit Around the Fire

A camp fire just screams FALL to me. Granted, our fire will be in a little fire pit in the back yard but it still gives off the fall vibes. Right?

*Pumpkin Patch

These cuties and I will make sure we find a patch and pick some pumpkins. Bonus points if the patch has a hayride. ;)

*Football Game

Since Nixon was born, I've tried my best to travel with the kids and attend one of Tab's games every year. I'm not sure it's happened every single year but we've gotten close. Last year, we loaded up and made it to the West Point game. I was just telling Tab last week there's no way we'll ever be able to top that. That long weekend in New York City in the fall was unbelievable. BUT...we'll do our best to make it happen.

I think this list sums up what we'll be doing this season. What about you?